Two of Trump's Own Republican Senators Are Blocking His Personal Criminal-Defense Lawyer From Becoming Attorney General Until He Promises Not to Build a $1.8 Billion Fund to Pay January 6 Rioters — So Trump Vowed to Keep Him as Unconfirmed Acting AG Indefinitely and Force the Fund Through Congress Anyway

It takes a great deal for Senate Republicans to defy Donald Trump on a nomination. It happened here because of what Trump was asking them to bless: installing his personal criminal-defense lawyer atop the Justice Department while that same department stood ready to hand $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6.

Who Blanche is

Todd Blanche is not a career prosecutor elevated on merit. He is the lawyer who defended Donald Trump personally in his criminal cases before Trump returned to office. Trump made him acting attorney general in April 2026, after firing Attorney General Pam Bondi. And he is the same official a federal judge, weeks ago, referred for bar discipline — after finding that the IRS "settlement" Blanche helped engineer was a collusive sham used to launder Trump personal tax immunity and to create a slush fund, and that Blanche's own congressional testimony about it was "at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous."

This is the man Trump wants to make the nation's permanent chief law-enforcement officer.

What the holdout is about

Two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — are refusing to advance Blanche's nomination. Their condition is specific and revealing: they want written assurance that the Justice Department will not stand up the "anti-weaponization fund."

That fund is the $1.8 billion program to pay claims from people who say the federal government was "weaponized" against them. In practice, as reporting has made explicit, it was designed to compensate the January 6 rioters Trump pardoned — to take money from the Treasury and route it to the people who attacked Congress, rebranded as victims. A federal judge voided the fund in July as the illegal product of a collusive lawsuit, and the DOJ had publicly said it was not moving forward with it.

Cornyn and Tillis simply want that in writing before they hand Blanche the department. Both sit on the Judiciary Committee; at least one of their votes is needed just to send the nomination to the floor. The committee vote was postponed. Tillis said plainly that, as things stand, Blanche will not be confirmed.

Trump's response: double down

Faced with two of his own senators asking him to promise not to pay Capitol rioters with public money, Trump did not give the promise. He threatened them. On August 1, he posted:

"If Senators Cornyn and Tillis … aren't going to approve Todd Blanche … then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill … PASSED."

Unpack the threat, because it is a confession. It says:

• If you won't confirm my lawyer, I'll keep him running the Justice Department anyway, indefinitely, without Senate confirmation — treating the "acting" designation as a permanent workaround for the advice-and-consent the Constitution requires
• And I'll pursue the $1.8 billion rioter fund through Congress — confirming that the fund the courts killed and the DOJ disavowed was never abandoned, only paused, and that paying January 6 defendants remains an active goal

The senators' price for confirmation was "don't do the corrupt thing." Trump's answer was "I'll do the corrupt thing whether you confirm him or not."

Why it matters

Strip away the process and the standoff documents three things at once.

First, the corruption is real and confirmed — real enough that two Republican senators, who agree with Trump on almost everything, will not put their names to it without a guarantee it stops. The anti-weaponization fund is not a Democratic talking point; it is a program Republicans are demanding be killed as a condition of cooperating.

Second, Trump would rather keep an unconfirmed loyalist atop the Justice Department than abandon the plan to pay the rioters. The "acting attorney general" title is being used to route around the Senate entirely — the same instinct that runs through every part of this administration, that confirmation, courts, and consent are obstacles to be bypassed rather than checks to be honored.

Third, the person this is all for is Todd Blanche — Trump's own defense lawyer, already flagged by a federal judge for professional discipline, whom Trump needs at the head of the Justice Department badly enough to threaten his own party over it. A president who wanted an independent Justice Department would not fight this hard to install his personal attorney to run it. A president who wants a Justice Department that works for him personally would fight exactly this hard. He is.

The rare good news is buried in the bad: for once, the check held, at least for a moment. Two Republicans said no. What they said no to — an unconfirmed personal lawyer running the DOJ while it prepares to pay the January 6 mob $1.8 billion — is the measure of how far things have gone.